


Unconventional Rescue

by marcicat



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Iron Man merchandise, January, New York
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 22:14:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcicat/pseuds/marcicat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha stages a rescue, prompted by Tony, or possibly JARVIS.  Inspired by these:</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unconventional Rescue

She'd been in colder places than New York in January, but that didn't make her any more interested in lingering where she didn't need to.  She was cutting through a park when Stark buzzed into the line.

"Not a good time," she said automatically.  (She had a phone in one hand, because it was the easiest way to be unremarkable, but Stark's voice came through the earpiece tucked carefully under her hat.  It was supposed to be a SHIELD only frequency.  Stark pretended to respect that when he felt like it, which was almost never.)  It wasn’t actually the worst moment for an interruption.  Natasha paused, and flipped the phone idly while she waited for a reply.

_"Sorry to interrupt the field trip.  I need your help.  Head north.  Well, not me exactly, except that I would be going if I were on the right continent -- coordinates on your phone now."_

She glanced at the screen, already on the move.  "That's a residential neighborhood," she said.

Stark was supposed to be in India, with Banner, investigating Doombot sightings. _"Makes sense,"_ he said.  He sounded distracted.

She rolled her eyes.  "Are you fighting Doombots right now?" she asked.

_"Yup.  Mostly keeping 'em corralled; they're Hulk's favorite."_

"While I do what, exactly?"  It wasn't like she couldn't go in blind, but she'd rather not. Stark’s idea of a good plan didn’t always match up to — anything, really.

_"You're not there yet?"_

She was, actually, or close enough.  It was a street.  Buildings, cars -- and in one of the windows, four floors up, was a paper with ‘HeLP’ written on it in a child’s messy scrawl.  The coordinates matched.

"Tell me how you knew that," she said, carefully neutral.  She slipped into the building and into the stairwell, smiling at a woman coaxing a dog through the lobby.

_"I don't know anything yet, that's why you're there."_

He'd fill the silence on his own, usually, so she didn't push as she counted off the floors. She'd just reached three when he said, _"Just -- wait to kill me for breach of privacy until you find out if the kid's okay, all right?  She's wearing a set of Iron Man wrist bracers."_

(The way Stark acted, you'd think nothing in the world made him happier than the fact that kids could carry a lunch box with his face on it.  He always made a point to announce it whenever one if the Avengers had merchandise released -- the Iron Man bracelets were part of the latest batch.

"These light up," Clint had said.  "And they make noise."

"Your point?"

"Yours don't do either of those things."

"I'm thinking about changing that now, believe me.  JARVIS, make a note.")

It still took a second for everything to process.  "You're tracking your toys?"

_"GPS.  A few other things.  To be fair, I'm tracking all our merchandise, to some extent."_

"And this set?"

_"JARVIS is pretty adept at recognizing bad stress versus good stress,"_ Stark said.   _"He's had plenty of practice."_

She reached the fourth floor and double-checked the coordinates (because there was no one there to see, and this was already going to be awkward enough without breaking into the wrong apartment).  The door was unlocked.

"I'm in," she said quietly.  The sounds of people (two, robbers, minimal experience) ransacking the bedroom were clear.  She was prepared to stalk them silently until she could confirm the child's safety, but the phone rang, and they startled, badly.  Itchy trigger fingers.

She had them subdued and immobilized in the kitchen in less than two minutes.  She probably could have done it in one, but she could afford the time to be tidy about it.  "Robbers are down," she said for Stark's benefit.

When she looked up, there was a girl staring at her from the doorway.

"Hi," Natasha said.

_"Yes, we did this part already,"_ Stark said, then added, _"Wait, are you talking to the kid?  Is she okay?  JARVIS says she's okay."_

"Are you an Avenger?" The girl asked.

"Yes," she said simply, and the girl nodded.

"Are they dead?"

"No."

"That's good.  You shouldn't kill people unless you really have to, right?"

(And she hated platitudes, was never sure what to say, so she said, "Are you hurt?")

The girl shook her head.  "I hid under my bed.  Mr. Jarvis told me you were coming."

"I saw your sign in the window," Natasha told her.  "That was clever."

The girl beamed, and ran off to take the sign down, or possibly just to show it off.  Natasha followed her, just in case.  She hung back long enough to say, "'A few other things,' Tony?  The toy Iron Man bracelets have a JARVIS link-up?"

His reply came quickly.   _"They're not bracelets, they're wrist bracers. And it’s really more like a phone that only calls one number. Besides, didn’t you have an imaginary friend when you were a kid?”_

She stayed silent, and he said, _“Local police are on their way.  And -- that was a bad example, wasn't it?  The general 'you,' then.  Other people, who aren't you.  I'm just making this worse, aren't I?"_

"Yes," she said.  She could hear sirens getting closer, and the girl chattered on about the sign, and the Avengers -- Black Widow was her favorite, apparently, which Natasha still had mixed feelings about.

_"Well, JARVIS likes kids, and it keeps both of us from having time to do things like hack into missile defense systems.  Win-win."_

She wondered how many kids JARVIS was helping — how many times Stark disappeared from the workshop when none of them had noticed. She held her earpiece out so the girl could shout, "Thank you Mr. Jarvis!"

(And unless Stark had been deafened by the volume, he must have been able to hear her add, "And Iron Man -- we should probably thank him too, right?”)

It was the closest Natasha was going to get to a direct thank-you, but Stark was a genius, after all.


End file.
